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Absolute power can only be supported by error, ignorance and prejudice.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
Error
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No woman ever yet either reasoned or acted long together consequentially but some little thing, some love, some resentment, somepresent momentary interest, some supposed slight, or some humour, always breaks in upon, and oversets their most prudent resolutions and schemes.
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To me it appears strange that the men against whom I should be enabled to bring an action for laying a little dirt at my door, may with impunity drive by it half-a-dozen calves, with their tails lopped close to their bodies and their hinder parts covered with blood.
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The insolent civility of a proud man is, if possible, more shocking than his rudeness could be because he shows you, by his manner, that he thinks it mere condescension in him and that his goodness alone bestows upon you what you have no pretense to claim.
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An honest man may really love a pretty girl, but only an idiot marries her merely because she is pretty.
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Women are much more like each other than men: they have, in truth, but two passions, vanity and love these are their universal characteristics.
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The only solid and lasting peace between a man and his wife is, doubtless, a separation.
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I am provoked at the contempt which most historians show for humanity in general one would think by them, that the whole human species consisted but of about a hundred and fifty people, called and dignified (commonly very undeservedly too) by the titles of Emperors, Kings, Popes, Generals, and Ministers.
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If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.
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People hate who makes you feel one's inferiority.
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Patience is the most necessary quality for business, many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request.
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In the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief.
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Dispatch is the soul of business, and nothing contributes more to dispatch than method.
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Our conjectures pass upon us for truths we will know what we do not know, and often, what we cannot know: so mortifying to our pride is the base suspicion of ignorance.
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Half the business is done, when one has gained the heart and the affections of those with whom one is to transact it.
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I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide.
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We are hardly ever grateful for a fine clock or watch when it goes right, and we pay attention to it only when it falters, for then we are caught by surprise. It ought to be the other way about.
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Women especially as to be talked to as below men, and above children.
Lord Chesterfield
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Remember that the wit, humour, and jokes of most mixed companies are local. They thrive in that particular soil, but will not often bear transplanting.
Lord Chesterfield
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The heart never grows better by age I fear rather worse always harder.
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Take rather than give the tone to the company you are in. If you have parts you will show them more or less upon every subject and if you have not, you had better talk sillily upon a subject of other people's than of your own choosing.
Lord Chesterfield